Courtesy
by Saulie
Summary: L and Light and a profoundly unsatisfying conversation, after the fact. Postseries.


Weird sketchy little thing. Because we all want them to proclaim their adoration for each other, get married, and have eighteen brilliant children—or at least do it—but Light and L live in minimalist land and they've both kicked it by now. Sigh.

They met once, as was logical.

"I suppose I owe you thanks," said L.

Light felt faintly annoyed. He did not have room for any intense emotion, having exhausted all of it during his life, but here in this almost-state he found it irritating that L had not left behind his capacity to be surprising. "Do you?"

…The stakes had been—

"Yes."

--so much higher, back then.

"Why is that?"

L smiled slightly. "I was right."

"…I figured as much," said Light.

Back then—that confirming expression, triumphant, gloating, pleased, final.

"I was right, too."

"—hm?"

"You _did _want me to be Kira."

"Of course." L nodded. "It could not have been anyone but you."

(would have been dreadful if it had been; would have been atrocious and humiliating and incomprehensible and terrifying; in theory)

"No," Light agrees. …pride, still.

"…So I thank you for informing me," said L.

"I always wondered about that," said Light. "Whether I was doing you a favor or not."

"No, you didn't." L sounded a little amused.

"Oh?"

"It is said that old habits die hard, Light-kun."

"…I could be being honest, you know," said Light.

L nodded in acquiescence. "You could. I would not know."

"…Yes, you would."

"Thank you again." One of his odd smiles, so far from childlike but with that lopsidedness that had always made him look rather—"I have been paid a compliment."

…They were so unused to being direct. It was not in either of their natures, really.

They were also not headed for the same place, of course. That had been sworn by the shinigami. Where they now stood—some sort of vestibule, Light had to estimate—was indistinct and irrelevant. Light was not sure how much time had passed since L had arrived, but he had not always been there.

So he asked, "Where was it that you came from?"

"…Definitely not Heaven," said L.

"Of course not."

"—and another compliment—" L was calmly licking an ice cream cone, Light realized; why hadn't he noticed that before? "—I am grateful, Light-kun. And before you ask, I do not know where you are going."

"Not to the same place as you, I presume."

L shook his head. "No."

"…Do you know," said Light, "I'm mildly disappointed."

"So am I," said L. "But, I daresay that you will keep yourself occupied."

"Thank _you,_ Ryuuzaki."

"What for?"

(that name hung in the not-air, just a little—_Ryuuzaki, _long out of use, just a little different; after all this time—it felt odder in L's ears than it had on Light's tongue)

"Your vote of confidence."

"You're welcome," L answered.

Light was, out of the first shock of death, kind of enjoying the opportunity to smirk at L openly as Kira. …It had been his greatest victory, after all. "It was valuable."

"I'm afraid I encouraged you," said L with a sigh. "But it would have been so boring otherwise."

"But what about—"

"_Justice?" _–L spoke up on on the last word, and they both said it with such sarcasm, their usually drastically dissonant voices chimed together in perfect scorn.

"_I _am justice, Ryuuzaki," said Light, with a softer and confident smile.

"…You still believe that." (L had at least had the good sense not to believe it of _himself _as he disbelieved it of Kira. Had it been Soichiro's influence that made Light so righteous, so idealistic?)

Light nodded. "I do."

"…You are very stupid, Light Yagami," said L.

Light considered the point.

"…Maybe once," he said.

"Really?"

"Yes."

L thought the acquiescence didn't feel like a concession, for all it sounded like one.

Light and L parted ways abruptly as they had before; it was the way of such things. L brieftly went over their conversation as he'd always done, analytical and instinctive.

_Maybe once, _hm.

Light had failed to specify.

Light had done so many stupid things and yet failed to specify which it was he actually admitted to.

--Well, that was certainly going to drive L up a wall for a while. He would figure it out, though. He had eternity or close to it, if he understood correctly.

_All of time, _came a rueful observation, _and that is all of Light Yagami I have left to analyze. _

Ah, well.

He thought about Hinduism, and Buddhism, and mystical practices of certain countries in the East, and what he had seen and what he hadn't; _the belief that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form. _It had a kind of neat logic to it. It made a kind of sense, and that had proven itself to be the only true criteria—if anything at all.

…What, six? Seven percent?

L disappeared from the vestibule as well in pursuit of Mello's chocolate, but the numbers—among other things—did not disappear.


End file.
